Blog

I've noticed over they past couple of years that I LIKE being busy. I can easily STAY busy once my semester is over, since I already have enough projects in mind to keep my time filled for at least a few months. The other problem I find is that I like interacting with people and working on my art in conjunction with other people working on their artwork.

The problems in my observations is that I have adopted the viewpoint of the home as a haven. This viewpoint evolved in America as it grew out of the rural, agrarian lifestyle and into a more industrial life. In the agrarian lifestyle, a person's home and a person's work coincided: the home was the central workplace, and often a family would work together. As men began leaving the home to go to work, the home began being viewed as a haven and a place for rest and relaxation, rather than work.

With the numerous books, movies, and games around my home--not to mention the internet in and of itself--the home is a place of fun and distraction. I also manage somehow in that space to forget everything I've been training for in illustration regarding using references and sources of inspiration and then I stare at the blank page and shake my head in frustration and aggrivation when I can't think of what to draw or why my drawing isn't turning out right.

I like it best when I'm in school and I can spend all day AT school, away from home and those distractions, and then go home at the end of the day, relax for a bit, perhaps get some more art done, relax some more and go to sleep. This bodes well for my work ethic, but unfortunately poorly for my future if I were ONLY persuing freelance illustration. I need to try to find a shared studio or something where I can get out of my home and get work done. But that also entails that I'm already making enough money to pay for renting studio space.

I am much happier now that I have started working with colored pencils, for many reasons. First, I can work fairly small--which I can't seem to break the habit of yet--and still achieve a level of detail that I am satisfied with. Second, I don't need to spend countless hours mixing paints in the hope that I might achieve the correct portions of the color that I mixed days before. Finally, I am able to take my colored pencil illustrations ANYWHERE and work on them. I have already taken up that habit in such a way that I have worked in airports, on a plane, outside, in classes, at family and friend's homes, etc, etc. Indeed, I have taken to carrying around all my colored pencil supplies and one illustration at all times just in case I get bored/find myself with nothing to do.

I'm kind of rambling here, writing my thoughts as they come. On a slightly unrelated topic, I think that in the years to come, webservers such as blogger.com will become important to historians as documents in studying the way of life of people at the beginning of the 21st century. I feel that for the most part, blogging has replaced much of diaries as emails have replaced letterwriting. The 'archaic' means are still available, just less prevalent.

I have finished up a tedious yet fun illustration for my sister, which is also going to be used as the holiday card for the university. I saved a low-resolution copy and thought I posted it to the website, but now I think that the file may still have been too large to post, as it hasn't appeared... either that or i still had it saved as a TIFF. That is the more likely of the two, I think. I'll have to check when I get home.